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Monday, February 29, 2016

LD is running a Leap Day 12-hour special- use the coupon LeapYear to save 29% on your purchase. No minimum purchase required! You can get some great deals especially since the code will even work on the bundles that are already 60% off!

This coupon is good for today only. CLICK HERE to use it in the LD store before the offer expires.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

One of my favorite things to bake is a made-from-scratch lemon loaf. It all started when one of my kids discovered the iced lemon pound cake at Starbucks. She loved it so much she'd ask for it every time we are in the coffee shop. Personally I thought it was way too sweet and so I went looking for a lemon loaf recipe that I could use at home.

Thanks to Google, it didn't take long to find what I was looking for. The lemon loaf recipe posted by Derf on Food.com was exactly what I needed. Unlike Starbucks' lemon cake, there is no corn syrup or extra color added. In fact, the recipe uses only 2 lemons and a few basic ingredients.

I was delighted the first time I baked the cake but I loved it even more after reducing the sugar by 1/4 cup and replacing 1/2 cup of milk with 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup lemon juice (as advised by a commenter).

The following is my modified recipe. You can find the original recipe by clicking HERE.

In another large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating until creamy.

Blend in milk and lemon juice.

Pour flour mixture into batter and stir to moisten.

Scrape into greased pan.

Bake for 55-60 minutes until toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.

Cool the loaf in the pan for 5-10 minutes.

While the loaf is cooling, make the glaze by combining the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan. Stir and heat till sugar is dissolved.

Place a cooling rack onto a cookie sheet.

Remove the loaf from the pan and onto the cooling rack. While the loaf is still hot, use a toothpick to poke holes all over the top and spoon glaze evenly over it.

Let the lemon loaf cool completely on the rack.

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Additional notes:
I love baking these lemon loaves to give away to friends. In order to make the cakes look even more fancy, I have baked them in the Nordic Ware Mini Baby Bunny Cake Pan and the Nordic Ware Mini Citrus Loaf Pan. In both cases, I greased and flour the pans really well so that the designs show up well and the cakes are released easily. I baked the cakes at 350F and for about 28-30 minutes.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Have you seen the new Buttercream Babes from LD? They are so cute! CLICK HERE to check out the whole collection.

Along with the release, LD is giving away a set of printable cards for free.

If you are a Silhouette Studio user, you can easily use these printables with the software. After you have downloaded and unzipped the file, just open the PNGs and resize them to your preference. I reduced the size of my cards to 5" x 7.5".

Next, just print the cards and trim them down to size, and they are ready for use! Easy peasy!

You can also use this set of printables if you do not have Silhouette Studio. Just open the included PDF file and you will be able to print the cards from there.

LD is giving away this set of printable cards for this weekend only. After Sunday, the file will be available for only $3 in the LD store.

Friday, February 26, 2016

It's the weekend!! Woohoo!!! I already have it all planned out. I'm going to the mall tomorrow while the kids are at Chinese School and then we'll drop by that Japanese restaurant we found last week when we did the Hello Kitty Hungry Hunt-Seattle. On Sunday, I'm going to Kon-Mari the family room and...

Oh wait.

Did LD just release the cutest cupcake set EVAH?

Oh. Em. Gee. How cute are these??!!

Forget about the mall and the restaurant. I don't think I'm going anywhere until I cut some of these out! They are so cute!! I ♥ the whole thing!

Just a quick little post from me this morning while we wait for LD's Friday Freebie. I'm going to surprise the kids with these button magnets that I made with some free Sanrio printables, my Silhouette Cameo, and my button maker.

I used the images from a free Hello Kitty printable with my 1" button template that I had designed with Silhouette Studio. The magnets that I used for this project are the same ones that I had previously posted (CLICK HERE if you had missed that post). They are super strong 3/4" x 1/8" ceramic magnets that can be encased inside the buttons so they do not fall out.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

My kids are huge fans of Lego and I've been wanting to ask LD if they could make a graphic and cut set of Minifigures. Imagine my surprise when they released their Under Construction collection! How did they read my mind? I was delighted!

The kids are on a week-long school break and I couldn't have been more excited when I found out that the Hello Kitty Hungry Hunt will start just before they head back to school. Hubby had planned to take the day off work BEFORE he even heard of the event, and so I decided it was a sign that we HAD to do the hunt.

from sanrio.com

There are 7 stores participating in the Seattle Hello Kitty Hungry Hunt. That is a few shops less than the 11 restaurants that participated in the Los Angeles hunt in 2014 but it also seemed more manageable.

We had hoped to complete the hunt in a day but bad weather and a horrible traffic jam caused a delay in our schedule. We ended up taking two days to finish the hunt- we visited five stores on Day 1 and the last two on Day 2.

We started out on the hunt thinking that we were only doing it to collect the limited edition Hello Kitty pins but we actually had a really great time! Even though we go to downtown Seattle fairly often, there are still a lot of places that we have not been. If not for the Hello Kitty Hungry Hunt, we might not have found the delicious cookies at Hello Robinor the yummy sushi at Japonessa. We really enjoyed visiting all the different shops and trying out their food (although they probably caused a sugar high at the end of the day. Yikes!).

The Hello Kitty Hungry Hunt in Seattle is on from Feb 19- Mar 18, 2016. CLICK HERE for the details of the event, including the locations of all the participating stores. If you are thinking of doing this hunt, please bear in mind that most, if not all, of the stores have a daily limit of pins and it may be wise to start the hunt early in the day.

1. Trophy Cupcakes, 600 Pine Street, Seattle, WA 98101

We already loved Trophy Cupcakes before the hunt and now we love them even more!

Friday, February 19, 2016

Wow. I can't believe that it's Friday again! The kids' mid-winter break is coming to an end and that means that next week, when they go back to school, I get to play with my toys and cut paper again. Hehe..

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Circus Palswas added to the LD store on Tuesday, 2/16/2016. To make it easier for everyone to see what is included in each set, I've put together all the previews below. As I had done this manually, please let me know if you see any mistakes so I can fix it. In addition, please double-check the contents of each set on the LD site yourself before completing your purchase.